At present, many network operators and/or mobile network operators such as Vodafone, SFR, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon, Mobile TeleSystems, T-Mobile have launched femtocell-based systems, femtocell-based applications, and/or femtocell-based services within their mobile operator networks. For mobile network operators, a femtocell may improve coverage and/or capacity such as in local areas and/or indoors. Users may benefit from improved coverage and potentially better voice quality and/or battery life.
In telecommunications, a femtocell relates to a small, low-power access point such as a cellular base station, substantially designed for use in a small local area, particularly indoors such as at home, a shop, a supermarket, a restaurant, a gas station, an event area. A femtocell may be a subset of a smallcell, which requires a specific hardware. Therefore, existing WiFi and/or DSL routers may not be upgraded to a femtocell. A femtocell substantially connects to a mobile operator network via broadband (e.g. DSL, cable). Femtocells may be sold by a mobile network operator, to users. A femtocell is substantially the size of a residential gateway or smaller and connects to the user's broadband line (e.g. DSL, cable). Integrated femtocells, which may include both a router and a femtocell, are also available.
Once plugged in, a femtocell may connect to the mobile operator network and provides extra coverage and/or capacity. From a user's perspective, it is plug-and-play there is no specific installation and/or technical knowledge required so that anyone can install a femtocell in a specific local area. Having a subscriber system, a user may declare which mobile phone numbers are allowed to connect to the plugged-in femtocell. This may be done via a web interface provided at the mobile network operator through the femtocell. When user devices operating under at least one of the registered numbers arrive under coverage of the femtocell, they switch over from a macrocell to the femtocell automatically.
A macrocell is a cell in a mobile operator network that provides radio coverage served by a high power cellular base station (also referred to as a tower).
A femtocell may allow service providers to extend service coverage indoors and/or at the cell edge, for example where access would otherwise be limited and/or unavailable.
Users and/or mobile network operators may benefit from femtocells. Femtocells may provide improved cellular coverage, capacity and/or applications for local areas including homes and/or enterprises as well as metropolitan and/or rural public spaces. Such applications are referred to as femtocell-based applications and/or femtocell-based systems. Femtocell-based systems substantially allow user devices and/or network applications to benefit from the cheap and fast data connections and location-awareness provided by femtocells. In femtocell-based systems, a femtocell may act as a portal to in-home services and/or automation with high-bandwidth connected-home applications and thereby delivering presence, context, and/or location in such applications. Examples of femtocell-based applications and/or systems may include home security with secure home access, virtual home phones, virtual fridge notes, etc.
Femtocells may provide offload of Radio Access Network (RAN) Mobile: User may use femtocells as an alternative to the macro radio network because the signal is stronger at their point of use (e.g. in a business establishment such as a shop, a restaurant, an office, an local area, etc). Femtocells enable a new breed of mobile services that exploits the technology's ability to detect presence, connect and/or interact with existing networks. Femtocells emit low levels of radio waves, also known as Radio Frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields in use.
In order to speed up system and/or application development the Small Cell Forum has published a series of application programming interfaces, APIs, which address issues related to lack of standardization among femtocells. Femtocell standards for UMTS (release 8); LTE (release 9), CDMA, and/or WiMac are developed.
There is an upcoming interest and/or requirement in local areas requesting for mobile electronic payment. Mobile electronic payment in local areas avoid that users are for example no longer requested to look up for their purse at a cash register at a supermarket. Hence, mobile electronic payment systems become of growing importance. Available mobile electronic payment systems may be for example based on one or more of the following computing and/or network technologies: SMS based transactional payments, in particular for a fixed amount of money, mobile web payments, and contactless Near Field Communications (NFC) which requires NFC-enabled mobile devices.
Problems that arise with regard to the above mentioned computing and/or computer network technologies for mobile electronic payment relate to transaction costs, inefficiency, inflexibility, and/or missing scalability of the mobile technology used, in particular due to the technical infrastructure including underlying hardware and/or software, a used mobile operator network, network connections to related entities such as payment institutes, additional software and/or hardware required by the user devices, additional software and/or hardware required by the mobile network operator. Further, it is desirable that possibly any mobile user can easily and in a flexible manner use a mobile electronic payment system simply via his user device.
Hence, there is a need to provide systems and methods for addressing the above problems to support efficient, flexible, and/or scalable computing and/or computer network technologies for use in mobile electronic payment.
According to one general aspect a communications network for providing a femtocell-based infrastructure for mobile electronic payment is provided. The network may comprise: a mobile operator network; a local area in the mobile operator network, wherein the local area is under coverage of at least one femtocell; and a femtocell-based payment system connected to the mobile operator network, wherein the femtocell-based payment system is operable to provide mobile electronic payment via a user device recognized by the at least one femtocell within the local area and notified by the femtocell-based payment system.
A mobile operator network may be a standard network such as D and E networks, 3G networks, LTE networks, WiFi networks provided by mobile network operators such as Vodafone, SFR, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon, Mobile TeleSystems, T-Mobile.
A local area in the mobile operator network may be an area which is under coverage of the mobile operator network and wherein at least one femtocell is plugged-in into the local area so that the local area is under the cellular coverage and capacity of the at least one femtocell. The femtocell relates to a small, low-power access point such as a cellular base station. In other words, the at least one femtocell is plugged-in into the local area and is connected to the mobile operator network. The at least one femtocell may provide extra coverage and/or capacity within the local area.
A femtocell-based payment system may be a software application developed and implemented for at least one femtocell. The femtocell-based payment system comprises one or more software components which comprise one or more interfaces to interact with other, existing software, hardware and/or network components. The femtocell-based payment system may also comprise one or more data storage devices for storing data required by the software components of the femtocell-based payment system. The software components of the femtocell-based payment system may comprise a one time code generator and/or a payment manager component.
The femtocell-based payment system is connected to a mobile operator network. For example, the femtocell-based payment system comprises at least one interface to interact, communicate, and/or exchange data with one or more (software, hardware, and/or network) components of the mobile operator network and/or hardware and/or software components connected to the mobile operator network.
Hardware and/or software components connected to the mobile operator network are herein after referred to as network-related systems. The network-related systems may comprise a mediation system, a network operator payment system and/or interfaces to financial institutes, an SMS centre, and/or an electronic register.
In connection to the mobile operator network and/or network-related systems, the femtocell-based payment system may provide and/or perform a mobile electronic payment. A mobile electronic payment may trigger an electronic transaction of an amount to be paid. The mobile electronic payment may comprise communication of electronic messages between a user device, the femtocell-based payment system, and/or an electronic register. The electronic messages may comprise a notification message, a transaction message, and/or a message communicated between the electronic register and the femtocell-based payment system.
A user device such as a mobile device including a mobile phone, a smart phone, a tablet can be recognized by at least one femtocell when the user device enters under coverage of the femtocell. The femtocell may recognize the user device by detecting presence of the user device under its coverage. The femtocell may communicate with the femtocell-based payment system to notify the femtocell-based payment system of the presence of a user device under its coverage. Being notified by the femtocell of the presence of a user device under coverage of the femtocell in the local area, the femtocell-based payment system communicates with the user device by notifying the user device that a mobile electronic payment can be performed using the femtocell-based payment system.
Advantageously, by providing mobile electronic payment using the femtocell-based payment system, drawbacks of existing technical solutions to electronic payment can be overcome. Compared with SMS based transactional payments, the transactions are not limited to a fixed amount of money. No additional hardware and/or software are required with the user device and/or the user of the local area. Mobile web payments may not be applied to local areas. Contactless Near Field Communications (NFC), which is basically developed for use within specific (local) areas, however, requires NFC-enabled user devices. Consequently, not a standard (non-NFC capable) user device can be used with NFC-based electronic payment, rather for NFC-based electronic payment NFC-capable devices are required. However, NFC-capable devices may be not as widespread used as non-NFC-capable devices so that NFC-capable devices might not have a comparable large number of possible users. The herein described mobile electronic payment can be performed with any standard user device. Further, NFC-based electronic payment may give raise to at least some security problems since transactions are performed in the near field and may be fraud by third parties. Further, even secured data on the user device may be fraud when another user device enters the near field. Such security problems do not arise with the herein described mobile electronic payment. Rather, the herein described mobile electronic payment allows for a high security since a unique one time code. Further, and contrary to the existing payment systems mentioned above, at no time in the process of the mobile electronic payment, neither secure data nor confidential data of the user of the user device (for example account data, credit card data, online banking data such as a tan, and/or other confidential data) are exchanged. Hence, the herein described femtocell-based payment system supports secure, efficient, flexible, and/or scalable computing and/or computer network technologies for use in mobile electronic payment. Further, it is possibly any mobile user can easily and in a flexible manner use mobile electronic payment simply via his user device. The femtocell-based payment system can be easily connected to any available mobile operator network.
According to an aspect, the femtocell-based payment system may comprise: a payment manager component operable to receive presence data regarding the user device via the at least one femtocell having recognized the user device, and upon receiving the presence data, to trigger the notification of the user device.
The femtocell may communicate with the femtocell-based payment system to notify the femtocell-based payment system of the presence of a user device under its coverage. The femtocell may communicate with the femtocell-based payment system by sending presence data of the user device to the femtocell-based payment system. The presence data unambiguously identify the user device and may comprise a telephone number of the user device with regard to a SIM card used with the user device. The presence data can be used by the femtocell-based payment system to communicate (e.g. via messages) with the user device. Hence, when the femtocell-based payment system has received the present data corresponding to the user device from the femtocell, the payment manager component of the femtocell-based payment system triggers a communication with the user device by notifying the user device that the mobile electronic payment can be performed using the femtocell-based payment system. In other words, upon receipt of the presence data at the femtocell-based payment system, the payment manager component may send a notification to the user device.
According to another aspect, the femtocell-based payment system may comprise: a one time code generator operable to generate a one time code for the mobile electronic payment, wherein the user device is notified by the femtocell-based payment system by receiving a notification message at the user device from the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the notification message comprises the generated one time code.
The notification message may be an SMS message and/or an email message received at the user device from the femtocell-based payment system.
The notification message sent to the user device form the femtocell-based payment system may comprise a one time code. The one time code may be generated by the one time code generator of the femtocell-based payment system. The one time code generator may be triggered to perform the one time code generation by the payment manager component after the payment manager component was notified of the presence of the user device by the femtocell.
The one time code may by a random number. The one time code generator may be a standard pseudo random number generator operable to generate random numbers. The one time code may comprise a short number of digits, e.g. 4 to 12 digits.
According to another general aspect, a computer system for providing a femtocell-based infrastructure for mobile electronic payment is provided. The system may comprise: a femtocell-based payment system connected to a mobile operator network, wherein the femtocell-based payment system is operable to provide mobile electronic payment via a user device recognized by at least one femtocell within a local area and notified by the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the local area is in the mobile operator network and is under coverage of the at least one femtocell.
According to an aspect, the femtocell-based payment system may comprise: a payment manager component operable to receive presence data regarding the user device via the at least one femtocell having recognized the user device, and upon receiving the presence data, trigger the notification of the user device.
According to another aspect, the femtocell-based payment system may comprise: a one time code generator operable to generate a one time code for the mobile electronic payment, wherein the user device is notified by the femtocell-based payment system by receiving a notification message at the user device from the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the notification message comprises the generated one time code.
According to yet another aspect, the mobile electronic payment may be performed by sending a transaction message from the user device to the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the transaction message comprises a one time code and a user pin.
Having received the one time code from the femtocell-based payment system at the user device and if the user of the user device wants to perform a transaction of an amount to be paid, the user performs the mobile electronic payment via the user device by sending a transaction message to the femtocell-based payment system.
The transaction message may be a SMS message and/or an email message sent from the user device to the femtocell-based payment system. The transaction message may be sent to the femtocell-based payment system via an electronic register connected to the femtocell-based payment system and identifying a transaction amount to be paid in the mobile electronic payment.
The transaction message may comprise the one time code and preferably also a user pin. The user pin may be a pin used to validate the SIM card used in the user device and/or a telephone number used with the SIM card in the user device. The transaction message may further comprise the transaction amount to be paid. The transaction amount may be communicated to the femtocell-based payment system from the user device and/or an electronic register in the local area.
According to yet another aspect, the one time code may be unique to the mobile electronic payment and may include a validity time for the mobile electronic payment.
The one time code may be unique. The one time code may be unique with regard to the mobile electronic payment. The one time code may be unique with regard to the local area, the user device, the mobile electronic payment, and/or a point and/or interval in time.
The one time code may comprise a validity time. The validity time may be a pre-defined time interval (e.g. 30 minutes, 1 hour, 5 minutes, 1 and a half hours, etc.) and/or a period corresponding to a time period the user device is under coverage of the femtocell. The validity time may be specified in terms of a finite interval of seconds and stored with the one time code in the femtocell-based payment system.
According to yet another aspect, the system may further comprise: an electronic register connected to the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the electronic register is operable to communicate a transaction amount for the mobile electronic payment to the femtocell-based payment system and to notify, via the user device, a user of the user device on the transaction amount for the mobile electronic payment.
The electronic register may be a cash register having an electronic connection (e.g. in terms of an interface) for communicating messages to and from the femtocell-based payment system.
The electronic register may be further operable to communicate with the user device. For communication with the user device, the electronic register may comprise a standard connection for example for sending and receiving SMS messages.
The electronic register is operable to communicate a transaction amount relating to the mobile electronic payment to the femtocell-based payment system and/or to the user device. The transaction amount may relate to an amount to be paid. The user device may be thus notified about the transaction amount of the mobile electronic payment.
According to yet another general aspect, a computer-implemented method for providing a femtocell-based infrastructure for mobile electronic payment is provided. The method may comprise: connecting a femtocell-based payment system to a mobile operator network; and performing mobile electronic payment via a user device recognized by at least one femtocell within a local area and notified by the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the local area is in the mobile operator network and is under coverage of the at least one femtocell.
According to an aspect, the method may further comprise: receiving presence data regarding the user device via the at least one femtocell having recognized the user device; and upon receiving the presence data, triggering the notification of the user device.
According to another aspect, the method may further comprise: generating a one time code for the mobile electronic payment; and notifying the user device by the femtocell-based payment system by receiving a notification message at the user device from the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the notification message comprises the generated one time code.
According to yet another aspect, the method may further comprise: performing the mobile electronic payment by sending a transaction message from the user device to the femtocell-based payment system, wherein the transaction message comprises a one time code and a user pin.
According to yet another aspect, the one time code may be unique to the mobile electronic payment and may include a validity time for the mobile electronic payment.
In another general aspect there is provided a computer-program product comprising computer readable instructions, which when loaded and run in a computer system and/or computer network system, cause the computer system and/or the computer network system to perform a method as described.
The subject matter described in this specification can be implemented as a method or as a system or using computer program products, tangibly embodied in or a non-transitory computer readable medium and/or information carriers, such as a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, a semiconductor memory, signal and/or data stream, and a hard disk. Such computer program products may cause a data processing apparatus to conduct one or more operations described in this specification.
In addition, the subject matter described in this specification can also be implemented as a system including a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory may encode one or more programs that cause the processor to perform one or more of the method acts described in this specification. Further the subject matter described in this specification can be implemented using various MRI machines.
Details of one or more implementations are set forth in the accompanying exemplary drawings and exemplary description below. Other features will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.